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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25870534">Behind a Translucent Veil</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaoru_chibimaster/pseuds/Kaoru_chibimaster'>Kaoru_chibimaster</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Kingdom Hearts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, M/M, ReMind Secret Episode, Sleep and Dreams</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 08:28:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,669</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25870534</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaoru_chibimaster/pseuds/Kaoru_chibimaster</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"A scattered dream that's like a far off memory."</p>
<p>Tracing a long-lasting connection leads Riku to a familiar city and an unexpected reunion.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Riku/Sora (Kingdom Hearts)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Re⊕Collect: A Soriku Fic Collection</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Behind a Translucent Veil</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>My Recollect zine fic. Many thanks to <a href="https://twitter.com/cloudcastor">@cloudcastor</a> for your beautiful illustration.</p>
<p>
  <strike>Anyway I literally just realized 5 seconds ago that the ToC got my title wrong and I spent about five minutes beforehand second guessing it asdfghj</strike>
</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was that dream again.</p>
<p>The one Riku had found himself delving into unconsciously for the past year. The city with its too bright lights and too tall buildings and too cramped spaces. The feeling of being watched raising the hair on his arms and sending chills down the nape of his neck, yet no matter which way he turned he could never meet that pair of eyes.</p>
<p>It never felt malicious, just…cold. Calculated. As if a predator watched him, too sated from its meal to bother him and yet still curious enough to train its attention on him. Riku wished he could say he’d grown used to that sensation, but it caught him off guard all the same.</p>
<p>Brow furrowing, he balled his hands into fists and struggled to take control of himself. Dreams were always so nonsensical and unpredictable…and he was looking for answers. Nonsensical and unpredictable would only serve as obstacles if he were to really use his dreams to look for Sora.</p>
<p>Something about this place had to be connected to him. It <em>had</em> to. It wouldn’t make sense for Riku to dream of a city he’s never visited otherwise.</p>
<p>It was a maze of high-rises and asphalt. Bright streetlamps and the gleam of light filtering from almost every building window, all jumbled together in a headache inducing mess too overstimulating to properly comprehend. Riku found himself wanting to rub his temples just to get the impending headache to go away. He wasn’t used to places like this. Rolling waves and white sand and the smell of salt in the air…that was natural to him. That was home. This city was so alien that Riku wondered how people could stand living in it. If anyone even lived here at all.</p>
<p>Typically, Riku’s dream landed him right in the middle of it. Right in front of a traffic light, on a sidewalk lined with youthful trees. He’d walk around for a bit, trying to take in his surroundings as the eerie silence started to weigh on his shoulders. The prickle of eyes on his back raised goosebumps over his skin. It started the same and ended the same: someone watched him for a bit while he ambled around in the streets and then…</p>
<p>And then he woke up. That was it. That was all it ever was.</p>
<p>Not this time.</p>
<p>This time it was different. Where normally Riku found himself wandering dark, damp streets in the middle of cramped city buildings that blotted out the skyline, now he stood in the middle of a scramble crossing lined with bright neon and flashy advertisements. In front of him, a tall cylindrical building sporting the number 104 in burning, ominous red stood imposing against the pitch black of night.</p>
<p>Atop it, something glowed.</p>
<p>Riku felt his curiosity spiking the longer he stared at that bright beacon. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly why when it was so indiscernible, but he wanted to know. He wanted to know why he wanted to know. He wanted to know <em>how</em>. He’d never had control of his own dreams like this, and he knew for a fact that it wasn’t Sora’s. There was always <em>something</em> to Sora’s dreams; something warm, familiar, comforting. Like being embraced tightly in those tan arms, fingers stroking Riku’s hair soothingly.</p>
<p>His own dreams never felt that way. This was chill inducing, like a nightmare dragged deep out of his subconscious. This was <em>wrong</em>.</p>
<p>Riku didn’t have the patience to question why he suddenly had control in this neon-streaked nightmare. Not when he could be moving forward.</p>
<p>Deciding not to spare any more thought for the anomaly, Riku simply shrugged and started towards the building with the 104. It was a steep way up but Riku didn’t want to lose sight of the bright spot by entering the building and trying to see if he could ascend it that way. Besides, in dreams there was no telling what could happen. He could walk through the door to that building and end up in another world entirely. He wasn’t interested in taking that chance.</p>
<p>Instead, a steady creep of power started to flow into his muscles. A pool of pure kinetic energy gathered in his calves, surged up his spine, and engulfed him in a bright magenta glow that he hadn’t experienced since the Mark of Mastery. He had no use for flowmotion in the Realm of Darkness. It was too flat and forward for any part of it to necessitate the ability, so he never bothered.</p>
<p>Now it was akin to spreading his wings after a long period of being grounded. It was freedom, the feeling of the wind whipping his hair as he leapt from his spot, feet barely touching the flashy building in front of him before he was air bound for the next one. Hopping each glowing sign at a higher altitude until he was eye-level with the 104. All it took was one jump to reach the top. One jump to learn the answer to his question.</p>
<p>As it turned out, when he reached the top and took in the image before him, he’d been asking the wrong questions this whole time.</p>
<p>Brow furrowed, Riku took in the glittering image of white crystal.</p>
<p>It was almost ice-like in quality; not cold to the touch but giving off a shivering sense of bleakness. Riku reached his hand out towards it and felt a chill travel the length of his arm, raising the hairs as goosebumps erupted over his skin. It was difficult to discern what was encased in the crystal from this angle…but he couldn’t shake the feeling that investigating further would give him an answer he didn’t want to receive. He wanted to berate himself for it. What was there to be so afraid of? It was simple: one foot in front of the other. Fingers still trailing the smooth surface, barely noticing that the rock was starting to glow. It warmed beneath his fingertips, almost pulsating with life now. Something was definitely inside it. Something important.</p>
<p>Riku almost wanted to close his eyes and turn away. Not let this dream transform into a nightmare. After all, something apprehensive burrowed deep into the back of his thoughts, ringing a warning bell in periodic notes.</p>
<p>He should have listened.</p>
<p>It was an image that barely registered to him at first, too marred by crystalline spires and an incessant blue glow. The shape of a person was outlined in the midst of glimmering chaos, tipped back as if caught off guard. Something about it felt…<em>alive</em>. <em>Familiar</em>. Like he was looking at an old…friend…</p>
<p>“Sora?” he gasped quietly.</p>
<p>The crystal flared. <em>Burned</em>. Everything about it came alive in all the wrong ways, as if Sora was trapped in there, fighting to get out. He’d always had a knack for digging himself into deeper trouble than he meant to, and on the odd occasion that he couldn’t get himself out, Riku was always right there to do so. But <em>this</em>? He didn’t know what to do with this. There was no darkness to drag Sora back out of, no slumber to wake him from. He was here. Right here. Riku could <em>touch</em> him, and…</p>
<p>Nothing.</p>
<p>No voice, no reassurance. No acknowledgment beyond the sudden, bursting energy that dwindled as quickly as it’d ignited. In its place was left a cold, eerie silence. A chill that ran the length of Riku’s spine, leaving him shivering and his fingers twitching for a weapon in response. There was nothing to fight, but Riku almost wished that an enemy would pop out and give him the excuse to let loose the swirl of battling emotions inside him. That would at least be <em>something</em>. This empty, helpless feeling of not knowing what to do, how to help…</p>
<p>He couldn’t stand it.</p>
<p>“Sora…” he tried again, reaching out to rest his hand against a crystal knee. Willing the now icy rock to warm again. He wondered if Sora could even hear him in there. Was he conscious? Did he know that this was happening to him? He couldn’t have been dreaming—Riku had already tried to dive into Sora’s dreams, but it wouldn’t work if Sora wasn’t asleep in the first place. Or if he was in too deep a sleep to dream.</p>
<p>He couldn’t have been…</p>
<p>No, he <em>had</em> to be alive. Someone who shined that bright couldn’t have been snuffed out by something like this, Riku <em>knew</em>. He <em>couldn’t have</em>.</p>
<p>Yet with Sora trapped in this crystal prison, Riku couldn’t spin this situation into anything much more positive. How did this even happen? What could’ve possibly done this to Sora?</p>
<p>“What happened to you?” Riku mumbled, trailing his fingers over the crystal and wishing for an answer he doubted he’d receive.</p>
<p>“He picked a fight he couldn’t win. Or at least a fight he shouldn’t have won…”</p>
<p>Jerking in surprise, Riku swiveled in his spot until his gaze settled on a pair of eyes glinting in the dark. The incessant glow of artificial light reflected off of them eerily, to the point where they almost seemed to glow. One red and one blue; a sharp, disconcerting contrast that seemed almost…fake. As if there was a mask in place, sporting painted on eyes. And that mask, uncanny in its realism, twisted into something pitying. Almost condescending.</p>
<p>These were the eyes that watched Riku. Something in him knew. So detached from reality that they almost seemed to look through Riku instead of at him, they sent the same icy pulse through his veins that he’d felt in every other dream. They narrowed as if in challenge.</p>
<p>Or in triumph.</p>
<p>Haughty and self-confident to match his tone of voice. To match his words.</p>
<p>It hit Riku then, what the man had said.</p>
<p>A fight Sora couldn’t win…</p>
<p>Images flashed before his eyes: a starry expanse, a station of heart, an intense fight, a swift blow, and the heartbreaking sight of Sora falling to his knees. It was almost like flipping through a picture album, though morbid and disturbing rather than nostalgic. It told Riku enough of what he needed to confirm though.</p>
<p>It was him.</p>
<p>He—because of him, Sora was—this was his fault. <em>He did this.</em>                                </p>
<p>“You… It was you…”</p>
<p>In a red flash, the man before him summoned a crossbow in one hand and a sword in the other. Stance shifting until he had lowered himself into a defensive position, watching Riku with an added air of caution as his line of sight shifted downward to Riku’s trembling fists.</p>
<p>He should be cautious. More than that, he should be <em>afraid</em>. Riku couldn’t even glance at Sora—at what was left of him without feeling a seething rage bubble up in his chest.</p>
<p>“You—! <em>What did you do?!</em>”</p>
<p>An accusation garbled and trembling and half drowned out by the keen ring of a keyblade being summoned forth. Riku was shaking. He was as breathless as he was mindless. There was no thought needed for this.</p>
<p>This stranger took Sora away. He had to pay.</p>
<p>A thick, oozing darkness clouded Riku’s thoughts in a way he hadn’t experienced in two years. He’d been fifteen and sheltered and naïve and the allure of other worlds had enticed him into giving into that encompassing blanket of greed and pride. He’d had something to <em>prove</em> then; if not to anyone else then at least to himself. It wasn’t about protecting anyone. Instead it was aimless, as if there was no real goal to work towards. Reach other worlds and then what? Find Kairi and then what? Spend the rest of his life as Maleficent’s errand boy? As Ansem’s, and subsequently Xehanort’s, vessel? He had nowhere to go when he’d first left the island, still fresh faced and too big for his britches.</p>
<p>But this? This was controlled chaos. Now he knew exactly what he could do with this power. Unable to be corrupted by it, he was instead in tune with it. It thrummed through his veins in tempo with his pulse, quick and steady and sure. His muscles tensed with it and it surrounded Braveheart in a black haze. Now there was a purpose for it.</p>
<p>Even if Riku was too late to protect Sora, he was absolutely going to avenge him.</p>
<p>Grip tightened, teeth bared, he wasted not even a second before charging. He didn’t yet know his opponent’s abilities, but he wasn’t interested in learning the slow and steady way. So what if it meant he came out of this with a few extra bruises? He’d give as good as he got and then some.</p>
<p>“Wai—” his opponent stuttered out, raising his weapon to meet Riku’s in a ringing clash before stepping back. The movement was trained and fluid, denoting that he must’ve been a seasoned fighter. His footwork, his controlled swings, his calm demeanor… It all flooded into Riku’s head as a second series of images, more vivid than the last. The clang of metal clashing, the whistle of air sliced through with swift strikes, the smell of magic that burned in Riku’s nostrils, and the desperate sounds of a familiar voice.</p>
<p>“Yozora,” it’d said. Frantic and afraid. Hesitant. There was a pause in every action Sora took, every strike.</p>
<p>Sora didn’t even want to fight.</p>
<p>Just the knowledge of that, the <em>idea</em> of it, fueled every swing of Braveheart. Every cleave through the air that met black metal in a shower of red sparks. Every step, every blow, every spell, every breath… Riku threw everything he had at Yozora, ignoring the hum of distress that droned in the back of his mind like a swarm of angered bees. Locked in a deadly dance with a partner who, despite his supposed unwillingness to respond in kind, held up his defense with a determined grace. There was no attack in kind. Yozora never broke from his defensive stance, never swung with any purpose beyond parrying Riku’s aggressive attacks.</p>
<p>It gave the distinction that he was holding back.</p>
<p>“I’m not here to <em>fight</em> <em>you</em>—” he grunted, confirming what Riku started to assume. Arm trembling as he pushed against the pressure Riku had brought down on him with an overhead slice.</p>
<p>It was bold of him to try and make an appeal when, behind Riku’s eyelids, Yozora’s battle against Sora continued to flash. Glimpses of his abilities unfolded in Riku’s mind in a series of ruthless tactics, each primed to take Sora down as swiftly as possible. Each attack cold and calculated, aimed at disarming Sora before beating him into submission. Just the thought of it had Riku seeing red.</p>
<p>“Then you shouldn’t have laid a hand on him!” he snarled.</p>
<p>The night was lit up with streaks of red and blue, filled with the whistle of weapons and the resounding echoes of their meetings, only visible as neon light glinted off of them and revealed their wild arcs. Exertion ate at Riku’s muscles, fueled with adrenaline and raw energy. He could be faster, stronger. He would be. If it meant unloading every attack in his arsenal, Riku would do it. If it meant wrapping every move, every dodge, every swing in darkness, Riku would <em>excel</em> at it. He would exploit every weakness he could find if it meant Yozora would understand the frantic desperation he put Sora through. The same desperation Riku felt in his every fiber.</p>
<p>There was no upper hand dealt to either of them. Yozora kept up with every attack, leaving no openings and never breaking his guard. He ducked under a swing, deflected a stab, shielded a spell. Their bodies became a blur from the effort, blending into the dark of night until nothing but flashes of color were visible. Both silent, refusing to even breathe off rhythm for fear of losing their tempo. Riku’s strikes were vicious, but never unwieldy. Too hyper focused on the bright flash of weapons and the burning glow of red and blue eyes.</p>
<p>Riku’s chest burned with the effort to keep his breathing even and his muscles strained as he fought for control. Darkness wrapped around them like a thin veil, fueling him where his natural stamina started to wane. It didn’t fill him or corrupt him, but it nudged at his senses with sweet whispers. Offers of power, more and more of it until he was brimming with it. Until he overcame his opponent and…</p>
<p>And…</p>
<p>And what? What would he even do after all was said and done? Bring Sora back? <em>How</em>?</p>
<p>As vindicating as it was letting every one of his frustrations out on Yozora, Riku couldn’t even pinpoint any sort of accomplishment he’d gain from this fight. It was <em>only</em> anger pushing him forward now. Only rage prolonging this one-sided fight. What would Master Yen Sid think if he saw Riku now? What would Mickey, or Terra, or Aqua think?</p>
<p>What would Sora think? He wouldn’t be happy at the sight of Riku losing his self-control, blanketed in darkness in a futile attempt to use it to defeat Yozora over a series of memories that Riku wasn’t even sure were <em>real</em>.</p>
<p>Just the thought of it gave him enough pause for Yozora to shoot Braveheart out of his hands, and the loss of that familiar weight stopped Riku in his tracks. That crossbow was pointed at him then, aimed right at his forehead, and Riku almost gave into his instinct to flinch in preparation for another shot that never came.</p>
<p>“You done?” Yozora asked instead, voice shaky with labored breaths.</p>
<p>“I…” Riku trailed off. Was he done? He was still so, so angry but…</p>
<p>He knew better than to let that get the better of him. Not again. <em>Never again</em>.</p>
<p>“I told you. I’m not here to fight.” Yozora turned his gaze to the crystal and Riku refused to follow it. He was sure he’d lose himself again if he did. “I’m here because he’s here.”</p>
<p>“You hurt him.” It was blunt, almost childishly so. Yet there was no way Yozora could deny what Riku saw.</p>
<p>“I fought him because I had to know. I had to know if he was really Sora. But whatever you saw? It didn’t lead to this,” he said, arm finally lowering as he tentatively let his guard down. His posture shifted into something easy and relaxed, almost insultingly so considering the state he left Sora in. Even if he said he didn’t.</p>
<p>Riku wasn’t as inclined as Sora to believe in people so easily.</p>
<p>“He can’t have just randomly ended up this way. How do I know you didn’t do this?”</p>
<p>Whatever Yozora’s explanation was going to be was lost as a voice echoed in Riku’s head like the chime of bells might resound through a cathedral. His breath caught in his throat, mouth dry and fingers trembling. Riku’s eyes finally drifted once more to the glowing crystal, widened in hopeful surprise when he heard it again.</p>
<p>“Riku…”</p>
<p>His name brushed his ears in tempered calm. A familiar voice with a nostalgic cadence that brought Riku back to summers spent on beaches, races on an expanse of white sand and a bent paopu tree that served as an age-old perch. Such a gentle, familiar tone that it drained the tension out of every fiber of Riku’s being. Relief…that’s what he was feeling. Relief and confusion and anger and disbelief, all mashed into a frustrating jumble. All insignificant when he turned towards the source of that voice.</p>
<p>Sora’s crystal glowed again, almost blindingly bright. It almost pulsated radiant light, so much so that Riku had to squint as he approached, battle all but forgotten. That didn’t matter anymore. Nothing else mattered right now.</p>
<p><em>Sora</em>.</p>
<p>“Riku,” Sora’s voice continued to float through the air like wisps of smoke, and Riku strained his ears to listen. “It’s okay. <em>I’m</em> okay.”</p>
<p>“But you’re…” Riku trailed off, running his fingers lightly over the crystal that encased Sora. His gaze flickered to Yozora for a split second, hard and confused, before returning to Sora. Locked on his eyes, shut softly as if in sleep.</p>
<p>“This isn’t me. We’re in <em>your</em> dreams, remember?”</p>
<p>Right. That’s <em>right</em>.</p>
<p>This was Riku’s dream, but…</p>
<p>How was he still in control? Becoming Sora’s dream eater gave him control in Sora’s dreams, but his own were still beyond his grasp. They’d carried out like normal after the Mark of Mastery—a swirl of memories intermixed with the occasional nightmare.</p>
<p>Until a year ago, when Sora disappeared. Then it was this same city, over and over again. Those same eyes watching him from afar. That same sense of helplessness.</p>
<p>Even then he hadn’t had this sort of control. What was this then?</p>
<p>“Why’s this one different? How are we talking now?”</p>
<p>“A connection,” Yozora answered. Riku frowned at him, and he held his hands up in mock surrender.</p>
<p>“Hold it. I told you, I’m not here to fight.”</p>
<p>Riku tapped his fingers wordlessly against Sora’s crystallized pants, making his point rather clear. He couldn’t exactly worm his way out of this. Riku had <em>seen</em> him dole out the final blow.</p>
<p>“I can’t save Sora if there’s nothing to be saved,” Yozora sighed, eyes rolling. “This is how this fight would’ve turned out if I had won.”</p>
<p>If…</p>
<p>What…?</p>
<p>“See, Riku? Your dreams are connected to mine, so you’re experiencing my struggles,” Sora started.</p>
<p>“But you’re still in your dreams. More specifically, your nightmares. You’re seeing the one thing you don’t want to happen: something Sora has to be saved from,” Yozora finished.</p>
<p>He had a point. Riku was confident Sora could handle himself out there, even when he’d pushed it too far with the power of waking. He was as capable of getting himself out of trouble as he was getting himself into it, and when he couldn’t do it on his own, Riku would be there to make up the difference. But it was rare that he’d ever had to <em>save</em> Sora. The last time he had was terrifying, and he never wanted to see Sora in that sort of situation again. He was so <em>strong</em>, stronger than anyone Riku knew. Stronger than himself, Riku believed.</p>
<p>He should never have to be saved.</p>
<p>It certainly explained why looking at him now, in this lifeless, crystallized state, was so painful. It wasn’t natural. Sora was too full of life and light and love to be reduced to this.</p>
<p>It truly was a nightmare to find him this way then. A nightmare that he suddenly had control in, but not over.</p>
<p>Sighing, Riku couldn’t help but to rub his temples as they started to throb. This was a bit too much.</p>
<p>“That still doesn’t…”</p>
<p>“Make any sense?” Sora chuckled at that. It was as familiar and warm as ever. Something Riku needed to hear. “Dreams usually don’t. But you’re right in that you’ve got a lot more control in this one.”</p>
<p>“Because we’re both talking to you through your dreams.” Yozora crossed his arms then, nodding to himself. It was as if something just occurred to him; as if all the pieces fit.</p>
<p>That was good for him, Riku supposed. He was still a little out of sorts.</p>
<p>“So I’m dreaming, so I don’t really have control? But you’re both talking to me, so I’m still conscious of everything?” This was headache inducing.</p>
<p>“What you see is the dream. What you hear is real,” Yozora concluded.</p>
<p>Alright. Sure, fine. Riku could work with that. He’d seen and done weirder, after all.</p>
<p>“Then how do I use these dreams to find you?” Riku asked.</p>
<p>“Trace the connection,” Sora said. “It’s hard to reach out to you like this. I can’t dive into your dreams like you did into mine, and I’ve lost all my powers so I can’t get back physically. But our hearts are the key.”</p>
<p>Right. That had always been the case, and Riku could almost repeat it like a mantra by this point. Their hearts were their guiding keys.</p>
<p>Easier said than done.</p>
<p>“I’ve been <em>trying</em>.” His voice broke into a sob he was loath to let out. Crying wouldn’t fix anything. It wouldn’t find Sora. The real Sora.</p>
<p>But Riku couldn’t help it.</p>
<p>Everything he’d done, for an entire year, was to bring Sora back home. To hold Sora in his arms and make sure he was safe. He’d searched every world he could think of with the King, only taking the most necessary of breaks on the Gummi Ship, he’d scoured data in Radiant Garden for even the smallest sign of Sora’s whereabouts, he’d even let Fairy Godmother rummage around in his head. She’d been as gentle and careful as she could be, but thumbing through his dreams like pages in a book was taxing because it meant he never truly got rest. Entire nights were spent in REM, walking the same city and feeling the same eyes on his back every time, and Riku would wake up exhausted and answerless each morning after.</p>
<p>Now he’d gotten so close. <em>So close!</em> He could even feel Sora’s presence, as if he truly was standing beside Riku, safe and whole. Yet Riku was being talked in circles, doled out riddles and expected to simply follow the connection. Where? How?</p>
<p>He didn’t know what he would do if he missed out on this chance when this was the first time he’d gotten to speak with Sora in a year. <em>But he didn’t know what to do.</em></p>
<p>“You’re too far away for me to dive into your dreams,” Riku continued, vaguely aware that he was starting to babble. A testament to his state of mind. “I’ve tried but it’s like grasping at air. I can’t—”</p>
<p>“You can. It’s not always about dreams, Riku.”</p>
<p>Of course it wasn’t. Things were never that simple, after all. It was always about either following his head or following his heart and neither had gotten him anywhere.</p>
<p>“If I could interject—”</p>
<p>“I’d rather you not,” Riku sighed, feeling a twitch in his brow when Yozora continued anyway.</p>
<p>“I think you’re being close-minded about this. Instead of trying to cut your way to him as if everything’s your enemy, maybe just shut up for a second and let him guide you?”</p>
<p>Bold of him to say considering the circumstances, and Riku couldn’t quite stop himself from throwing a cold glare over his shoulder at Yozora, but it wouldn’t help anyone to keep kicking and screaming through a pointless battle. Besides, if Yozora was telling the truth and this wasn’t the real outcome of his fight with Sora, then Riku didn’t have much to be upset about in the first place.</p>
<p>Loath as he was to admit, Yozora had a point too. If Sora was reaching out to Riku, it’d be better to grab his hand and let himself be guided. Jumping worlds in a frantic search, combing through dreams and data with a one-track determination… Riku wasn’t listening out for Sora. He was looking everywhere but right in front of him.</p>
<p>“Okay,” he nodded, closing his eyes and gripping the crystal tighter. Feeling the warmth against his skin grow hotter. Another set of images filled his head then: ones of victory. Sora staring up at a clear blue sky as Yozora and his dark city fade away, a faint, calm admission of defeat echoing in his ears, a bright flash of light, and the heartening sensation of a trial overcome. Sora truly was out there, Riku could feel it. Like a pair of arms cradling him close and a soft smile beckoning him forward.</p>
<p>Riku reached out, a funny parallel to the start of their very first adventure, and this time he felt the sensation of fingers grasping his hand. He didn’t know where they would pull him or how this would end, but as the world fell away and there was no more city, no more Yozora, no more nightmares…</p>
<p>He knew he’d find Sora in the end.</p>
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